Friday, June 3, 2011

Do you see the irony here?

We started off this morning with our walk of the overweight dog. About halfway through Mike spotted a little bird in the grass flapping his wings but not going anywhere. I did what I always do in these situations. I sent Mike to investigate. He picked up the bird and determined that it had a hurt leg. We are both relatively compassionate people and want to teach our kids compassion so we decided to scoop up the little bird in a towel we had in our stroller and take him home with us.

When we got home we let the kids take a look at the bird and told them that it was hurt but that we were going to try to help it. So I made some phone calls. There is a wildlife rehabilitation place in downtown Austin we could drop the bird off at. We put the bird in a box still wrapped in a towel and headed off to Austin. We named it Flinn. Half a gas tank later, we found the place and checked in with a volunteer. She confirmed that we had a baby dove with a hurt but not broken leg. She said it would be fine but that it was really hungry and she needed to feed it right away. Then she asked me if I had fed it anything and I felt really bad that the answer was "no." But, we only had the little thing for about an hour and a half and I didn't think it would enjoy goldfish crackers or Pirate Booty.

The rehab place was on some really pretty land with walking trails so we decided to take the kids for a little hike. We had a really nice time until some sort of foreign object lodged itself in Jake's shoe and he still has not found it or stopped complaining about it.

On our way home we talked about Flinn and how nice it was to help take care of one of God's creatures. I have to say we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Right up until a bird flew into our windshield and bounced off the car as we were going approximately 55 mph. Mike tried to convince me that he hadn't seen the body drop anywhere and that this bird was probably just suffering from a minor concussion or something. I don't know if I buy it. But I do know that the next time we find a hurt animal we will bring it home, feed it goldfish crackers and hope for the best.

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I used to be a Marine Biologist. Well, sort of. I taught Marine Biology and worked on a boat educating the public about all things oceanic. I'm now married to my best friend and we are blessed with an adorable little boy and baby girl. These are our life and times (with a few random thoughts thrown in).